Various industries utilize rivet tape as a convenient method of storing, holding, and dispensing rivets during manufacturing/assembly joinery processes. As is known, rivet tape is an elongated length of a polymer including spaced-apart apertures defined through a thickness thereof, dimensioned to hold multiple rivets in a spaced apart relationship. Industrial rivet tape also typically includes a plurality of gear indexer apertures along a longitudinal length thereof, to allow feeding the tape and rivets through a suitable riveting machine including indexing gears which advance the rivet tape forwardly through the machine. Conveniently, such riveting machines are configured to hold and to feed a roll of rivet tape and associated rivets there-through over a workpiece such as adjoining panels to be joined by riveting.
If a portion of a roll of rivet tape is broken or damaged, the damaged portion must be repaired in order for the roll to properly feed through the riveting machine mechanism. Conventional methods for repairing polymers such as sonic welding are unsuitable because oils in the rivet tape polymer interfere with proper bonding. Conventional adhesives such as glues and epoxies lack sufficient strength to support the stresses imposed by a riveting machine, and adhering polymer strips over a broken or damaged portion using conventional adhesives prevents the repaired rivet tape portion from feeding properly through a riveting machine gearing due to interference from the adhered polymer strips. Conventional tape joints likewise interfere with proper operation of a riveting machine due to problems feeding through the riveting machine indexing gears.
Such broken rivet tapes result in significant waste and economic loss due to inability to effectively use portions of a roll, typically requiring discarding the partial roll and remaining rivets held thereby. Accordingly, a need in the art for a better method for repairing rivet tape is identified.